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The group of priests, unaware of the one stalking them, continued their conversation without concern.

The priest who had been in the grove with Joseph spoke first. “Everyone recovering well?”

"No, sir, preparations have been thwarted.”

“Movement of the beast being misaligned was part of the potential risk.

“No, they never made it to the expected point, and the soldier was forcefully decommissioned ahead of when expected and caused unexpected injuries in our banded devotees.”

“That is distributing.” The priest’s eyes darkened. He nodded in understanding and asked. “Saint Joseph Sunrise Dawn Starcaller, can you please heal our recovering followers who have acted in service?”

“Glady.” Joseph appeared in his thirties with a slightly aged look. His eyes and hair were both pure white, and he possessed a very rectangular face that contained no blemishes.

The warmth of Light flowed over the company of priests, as their physical injuries were slowly taken care of, but the mana depletion had to wait until they reconvened with their supplies in a more secure location.

[It’s impressive how much one is willing to expatiate when they believe they are alone.] (Luna)

A star of moonlight appeared from above and shattered into a thousand pieces.

“Argh!”

“Nigh!”

“U–”

“Saint!”

“Lord!”

It was sudden, unexpected, and deadly.

The exploded star let out a powerful impact in the surrounding area and its shards flew into the bodies of priests cutting them. Those shards faded away quickly after the spell ended.

The condensed star of Moonlight was a more stable version of what the madden Luna had created before to wipe out the last group of priests, but it was still far from what she would consider perfect. That experience had left a lasting impact on her for many reasons. One of those impacts was the desire to properly craft and learn a new set of spells for Moonlight. She had always been working on some in the background since they were children, but it always happened in between events when Syrus or Eva didn’t have something they wanted to do, and Luna didn’t have something else important to accomplish in her minimal time.

Soon a second one formed.

[Luna, are you okay?] (Syrus)

[Yes… these constructs are just hard to control…] (Luna)

[I’ll help stabilise.] (Eva)

[No, you keep tabs on our appearance. I will be making my entrance in a moment.] (Luna)

Compared to the Moonlight stars from before that were uneven, this one was a mostly even star polyhedron. Its surface did wave slightly as she tried to ensure only the necessary amount of mana was poured into it.

Based on Jen’s research, Luna was unsure if this would count as tier two or three in complexity. From experience at the church, they didn’t use such systems and just gave her the list of spells she had to perfect.

If Luna wasn’t careful, the spell could easily enter a self-destruct phase; there was a simple counter to that, which was using large amounts of mana to forcefully contain it. This was what she did during her rampage.

Luna sent out the second star and began forming Moonlight spears behind and above her. These were simple solid structures of Moonlight, nothing special under their hood.

The gathering of priests could only do so much as the second Moonlight star, a more unstable one, dropped onto the group.

The group of five were exhausted mentally and drained of mana from when they controlled the construct. Anlesa didn’t exactly know that, so she did go into this fight with the assumption that they still had the energy to fight with to be careful. This is why she chose to deal with them first.

With soothing white light, the second star fell and shattered, where the five individuals smashed into the ground.

“ARGH!”

A shrapnel-filled explosion snuffed the light out of the exhausted individuals.

“What manner of demonry is this?” The man next to Joseph exclaimed. “How could one use light against the church!?”

“I wonder indeed.” A cold voice echoed around them.

It was strangely familiar to Joseph and his companion.

[Do you recognise his companion?] (Syrus)

[No.] (Luna)

“E-enough of this!” Joseph tapped his foot on the ground, and a blinding light barrier appeared around them.

“Even now?” The voice mocked them. “Is that all you can do? Pathetic.”

“Disgusting.”

“Filthy.”

“Weak.”

[Honestly, you are doing a really good job at throwing your voice.] (Syrus)

[Hmhmm! Very amazing!] (Eva)

[Thank you.] (Luna)

The man beside Joseph raised his hand, and a wind and flames circled around him. “Whomever you are, you shall not be free of the church’s wrath!”

The flames latched onto the wind and circled around him in a figure-eight shape. “For all angels and saints above, under the lord's watchful gaze, you shall be punished until your days end.” He tried to put fear into whoever their opponent was. If they were humans, his threats were effective. He knew that best, even the most deranged of beastly humans who resort to banditry, knew to be afraid of the power of the church.

“Maybe such a play would work if thou knew thy enemy.”

Moonlight spears penetrated through the barrier as if it were nothing and stabbed into the elderly companion priest.

He crumbled over, angered at his attack and the saint's failure of a shield that led him to such a state. Joseph turned around to see where the attack had come from.

Crunch.

The sound of a small branch and leaves being crushed under one's foot was clearly heard, right in front of them.

Joseph turned back around, and the old man looked up, a fire exploding in his hand that he was ready to throw at a moment's notice.

“Hello, I hope you haven’t forgotten me?”

The face of the dead, one that had been made of marble and was painted in memorial.

She stood there.

In front of them.

“You can rest now.” Luna clicked her fingers, and the spears of Moonlight fell from above, breaking through the shield and stabbing through the man’s body, killing him.

[Thank you for the assist.] (Luna)

[Glad I was able to help.] (Eva)

[Nothing to be proud of.] (Syrus)

The moment they realised the man’s attribute was Fire, Syrus held no fear of him and suggested appearing out now. Eva helped maintain and move Luna’s spears floating above the barrier.

Joseph’s mouth dropped.

He saw a face that hadn’t aged in years… a face he had seen the skull of.

“Long time, no see, Joseph,” Luna said. Eva managed to adjust their voice so Luna sounded just like she did when they first met. Her cold, practically unfeeling voice no longer carried the mask of a saint, and neither did her smile. It was cruel.

“How…” He looked back and forth between the bodies of his companions and Luna.

“How? How about what? How that I am here? How did I kill your friends? How did I break through your puny barrier? How did I get into your barrier? How am I alive? Or am I alive? Am I just a ghost, a vengeful spirit, one of retribution and all those other fun emotions?” Luna let out a small mocking laugh.

“Or what? All of them? Wow, you are quite greedy!”

“You…u.” He was afraid, and he was praying to the Lord that this was some demon’s illusion. “Are dead.”

“What about the markings? Did you see them?” Luna took a step and leant forward.

His body relatively nodded, remembering the sight as he was one of the required twelve individuals who had to confirm the corpse.

Luna stroked her chin, “Oh, so you did see my body? I was wondering if it was even brought back, but I assumed that would have someone around; after all, the body of the saint would’ve made a great art piece.”

[...What?] (Eva)

There were multiple parts that confused Eva. What did Luna mean by markings? What did she mean about the body?

[Eva, monsters… don’t leave the human body in… let’s just say a humane condition if they are killed by one. So, if they managed to retrieve the body, then that means they had people watching nearby to assume Luna died. The marking likely was some tattoo.] (Syrus)

[Syrus is correct, Lilly. Though the tattoo is accurate. However, you are definitely thinking of the wrong picture.] (Luna)

[Hmm?] (Syrus)

[They dyed my bones.] Luna announced. [Some of them at least, what better way to prove a corpse than bones that could only belong to a holy person!]

Eva’s heart shock… Syrus couldn’t understand how that was possible.

[You… never had any scares…] (Eva)

[No. No, I did not. Many needles and many injections, but all the best healing in the world. Though I wasn’t sure what colour they made them, that was a surprise for death after all.] (Luna)

“Eliana… Alinastar… Bright Shinelight… you should return to the dead…” The fact that her face looked that exact same and the spectral glow–which was just Luna’s Moonlight glow from the armour and cloak–he perceived as a ghost. He had never seen one before, but what else could this thing be, outside of the trick on his mind?

“Oh, so you are recognising me as such?”

To mock him, she created a spear outside the shield and launched it at his leg.

“ARgh!” He crouched over in pain.

“Come on, can you heal yourself? Or did you forget how to do that?”

As the first spear faded away, a second stabbed his other leg. “And don’t call me that... I guess you can refer to me as Elianna, but, any, other, words after that and the next spear will be lodged in your throat.”

He gulped, and he slowly healed himself. Once his legs were no longer scared, he stood up, but his posture was lower as he was afraid to look down on Luna.

Eva managed to shrink their body a bit along with everything, but she wasn’t sure that after this she would be able to have the Syrus’ disguise active.

“Why… why are you here… you would never do something like this…” Joseph tried to play on her moral compass.

Luna scoffed, “What have you been smoking since I was gone? What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Do you believe I am unaware of what you are doing here?”

He confidently said. “We’re innocent beings. Tis not our actions that have caused fated events.”

“And?” Luna didn’t believe him for even a moment, but she decided to humour him. “What differences does that make?”

“...Huh..?”

“What, difference, does that make? Is that hard to understand?”

She stomped forward. “I enjoy it, snuffing each life that stole mine from me.”

“How-w-w-w can you say something like that?!” Joseph fell onto his butt.

Luna laughed. “Well, are you sure you weren’t sent to die here?”